1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to reproduction apparatus comprising non-impact print apparatus employing plural recording elements for recording dot-like elements.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art as exemplified by U.S. Application Ser. No. 000,295, filed Jan. 2, 1987 and now U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,010 in the name of Charles E. Ayers et al and entitled, "Circuit for Generating Center Pulse-Width Modulated Waveforms and Non-Impact Printer Using Same," non-impact print apparatus is described which comprises a plurality of individually addressable and energizable point-like recording elements such as light emitting diodes (LED's) arranged for exposing points or dots upon a photoreceptor during movement thereof relative to the recording elements. Binary driver circuits are provided for simultaneously energizing the recording elements in response to data bit input signals applied to the driver circuits. As used herein, a binary driver circuit is one for activating a recording element if there is a data bit indicating the element is to be activated and the recording element is activated for a time period determined by a strobe signal to form a dot-like element or pixel. A binary driver circuit is distinguished from a grey-scale driver circuit which has the capability of forming each pixel in accordance with a multible bit data signal. As used herein, the dot-like elements or pixels referred to are descriptive of the basic or micropixel dot-like printed elements and not to combinations of individual pixels into patterns of fatter dots which are also known as superpixels. In the print apparatus described in the above-referred to prior art application correction for nonuniformity in relative light output of the LED's is provided employing a plurality of strobe lines having different strobe times. The LED's are attached to appropriate strobe lines in accordance with their relative light emission characteristics, i.e., LED's tending to provide lower light output are attached to strobe lines having an activation time or relatively longer duration than other LED's.
In this binary driven type printer no provision is made for creating pictorial information with pixels of smaller size than that used for creating line-type information. Description in the above-referred to prior art for creating pixels of different size are described in terms of a grey scale driven printer wherein multiple bits of data are required to determine exposure time for forming each pixel. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a printer of the binary driven type for printing generally symmetrically shaped exposure corrected pixels which is also capable of printing pixels of different size in accordance with the type of information to be printed.